Earth Observing System (EOS) Aura is a NASA mission to study the Earth's ozone, air quality and climate. This mission is designed exclusively to conduct research on the composition, chemistry and dynamics of the Earth's upper and lower atmosphere employing multiple instruments on a single satellite. EOS Aura is the third in a series of major Earth observing satellites to study the environment and climate change and is part of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise. The first and second missions, Terra and Aqua, are designed to study the land, oceans, and the Earth's radiation budget. Aura's chemistry measurements will also follow up on measurements which began with NASA'S Upper Atmospheric Research Satellite and continue the record of satellite ozone data collected from the TOMS missions.

The EOS Aura satellite, instruments, launch, and science investigations are managed by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. The satellite was launched in July 2004 and will operated for five or more years. Scientific investigations will continue throughout the years the spacecraft is in operation and several years afterwards.

The Aura Project staff includes managers, engineers, administrators and financial personnel, science advisory personnel, and functional Working Groups. The Project administers the contracts for each of Aura's instruments and the Aura spacecraft and specifies the launch vehicle. They oversee the design, fabrication, assembly and testing of each instrument and the integration of all the instruments to the spacecraft. They devise and implement the plans, specifications, schedules and budgets required to build the Aura spacecraft and deploy it in orbit. They also provide multi-disciplinary engineering expertise to deal with diverse technical challenges that occur when developing, building, and testing a complex spacecraft system.